Fricassee

What's the best way to remember the difference between a stew and an old-fashioned fricassee -- which has been around longer than Shakespeare's plays but sounds like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon? Try this: Fricassee forward, stew back. Because fricassee can be a perfect springtime supper. Not that confusion about the antecedents of the two dishes is clogging the food blogs. You won't find many modern cooks who recall what a fricassee is, really, or what the word even...

Statistically speaking, each and every American man, woman and child is responsible for the slaughter of 30 chickens every year. If that thought bothers you, perhaps today's topic is not for you. If, on the other hand, it merely produces drooling daydreams of dinners to come, then, my friends, I give you the fricassee. Why you need to learn this Fricassees produce meats that are fall-apart tender. With its luxurious finish of cream and optional egg yolk, the sauce has a...

Nostalgia has hit the dinner table and nothing captures the essence of Mom's home-style cooking like chicken fricassee. Chicken is a good buy nutritionally and economically, and cooks can save even more money by buying a whole bird and cutting it up at home. A dubious honor usually reserved for older birds, fricasseed chicken use to be simmered on the range for hours in a well-seasoned stock until the meat was as tender as a young bird's. The following recipe...

Mexique. Fusion (fyoo' zhen): n. Culinary technique melding two or more traditional cooking styles into a pretentious and incomprehensible whole. The term fusion is out of favor these days -- persona au gratin, as we say in the food biz -- so I'm not going to use it to describe what first-time chef Carlos Gaytan is doing at Mexique, his charming, 6-month-old West Town storefront. Let's just say that Gaytan tweaks recipes he learned in his native Mexican state of Guerrero with techniques he picked...

Many cooks use the terms fricassee and stew interchangeably, although there are fundamental differences between the two. A traditional French fricassee is almost always made with poultry, usually chicken, but stews can be made with a variety of meats, vegetables or seafood. Moreover, the poultry in a fricassee is not seared at the outset as stew meats are. In the following recipe, the chicken pieces are browned only enough to melt away excess fat, then cooked in broth. I add acacia honey to the recipe, for...

What's the best way to remember the difference between a stew and an old-fashioned fricassee -- which has been around longer than Shakespeare's plays but sounds like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon? Try this: Fricassee forward, stew back. Because fricassee can be a perfect springtime supper. Not that confusion about the antecedents of the two dishes is clogging the food blogs. You won't find many modern cooks who recall what a fricassee is, really, or what the word even...

Statistically speaking, each and every American man, woman and child is responsible for the slaughter of 30 chickens every year. If that thought bothers you, perhaps today's topic is not for you. If, on the other hand, it merely produces drooling daydreams of dinners to come, then, my friends, I give you the fricassee. Why you need to learn this Fricassees produce meats that are fall-apart tender. With its luxurious finish of cream and optional egg yolk, the sauce has a...

Before cruising through the Greek islands last summer I knew that the Seabourn Cruise Line had a reputation for its international cuisine. In fact, that was what attracted me to the Seabourn Spirit, a small 204-passenger cruise ship. However, it was the flavors of the regional Greek cuisine chef Harald Markt had on his menus each day that impressed me. For dinner one evening he prepared this tasty lamb fricassee with field vegetables and chickpeas...

And the fur fairly flew from the mail carrier's pouch: Brother Austin Mysliwiec, Franciscan Friars, Pulaski, Wis.-An admitted bias brought upon by my membership in a local animal-rights group (the Northeast Wisconsin Voice for Animals) piques my attention each time you address this subject. Needless to say, we`re aware that you and I accept different premises bringing us to opposite deductions. The real purpose of this letter is to tell you how much I enjoy your presentations...

Low on time and short on ideas for a quickly prepared but delicious dinner? Think chicken. Not roast chicken; that's best served on a day when you have an hour or so to wait for the fat bird to reach a succulent doneness. And not fried chicken, which packs more fat than the doctor ordered. But sauteed chicken, the quickest and tastiest way to prepare this most popular member of the poultry family. Though called a saute (pronounced saw-tay), meaning cooked by the heat of the...

Mexique. Fusion (fyoo' zhen): n. Culinary technique melding two or more traditional cooking styles into a pretentious and incomprehensible whole. The term fusion is out of favor these days -- persona au gratin, as we say in the food biz -- so I'm not going to use it to describe what first-time chef Carlos Gaytan is doing at Mexique, his charming, 6-month-old West Town storefront. Let's just say that Gaytan tweaks recipes he learned in his native Mexican state of Guerrero with techniques he picked...

And the fur fairly flew from the mail carrier's pouch: Brother Austin Mysliwiec, Franciscan Friars, Pulaski, Wis.-An admitted bias brought upon by my membership in a local animal-rights group (the Northeast Wisconsin Voice for Animals) piques my attention each time you address this subject. Needless to say, we`re aware that you and I accept different premises bringing us to opposite deductions. The real purpose of this letter is to tell you how much I enjoy your presentations...

Low on time and short on ideas for a quickly prepared but delicious dinner? Think chicken. Not roast chicken; that's best served on a day when you have an hour or so to wait for the fat bird to reach a succulent doneness. And not fried chicken, which packs more fat than the doctor ordered. But sauteed chicken, the quickest and tastiest way to prepare this most popular member of the poultry family. Though called a saute (pronounced saw-tay), meaning cooked by the heat of the...

Novice cooks often find anything beyond broiling a hamburger or a pork chop to be too, too daunting. Chicken sautees or fricassees? Out of the question. Actually, those two types of chicken dishes are easy-as-pie to prepare, although the finished products look and taste complicated. The most difficult aspect for a beginner might be cutting up a whole chicken, or you may choose to pay a little more for the prepackaged, cut-up chicken pieces of your...

For more than two centuries Americans have nurtured a love-hate relationship with their country cooking, savoring its simplicity and warmth, yet rejecting it at every turn for the latest food fad. These days, to a greater and greater degree, love is winning. Flashy restaurants are serving meatloaf and chicken-fried steak, pot roast and fresh fruit cobblers. And the publishing industry is blessing the trend with a host of cookbooks devoted to the old-new...

The term fricassee has become better known in recent years with the popularity of Cajun and Creole cuisines, which feature a variety of dishes under that name. Sometimes cooks erroneously equate fricassee with stew, but the two are fundamentally different. For one thing, a fricassee normally has a white sauce or broth; a stew generally has a dark sauce. A stew gets part of its rich color from the browning of meat before cooking. In a fricassee the meat-in this case chicken-is cooked only to a golden brown before...

Jeffrey Vallance, a 28-year-old artist who lives in Canoga Park, Calif., was vaguely troubled about society's attitude toward animals. "We categorize animals," Vallance said. "We call some animals `pets,` and we keep them around the house. We call other animals `food,` and we eat them." Vallance thought this was odd: "In other cultures, the animals we call `pets` are regarded as food. In Indochina, for example, people eat dogs all the time. I consider all animals to be the...

Many cooks use the terms fricassee and stew interchangeably, although there are fundamental differences between the two. A traditional French fricassee is almost always made with poultry, usually chicken, but stews can be made with a variety of meats, vegetables or seafood. Moreover, the poultry in a fricassee is not seared at the outset as stew meats are. In the following recipe, the chicken pieces are browned only enough to melt away excess fat, then cooked in broth. I add acacia honey to the recipe, for...

Old recipes hold many surprises, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731, is the source of not a few. Some of the treasures are revealed currently in "The Larder Invaded," a charming exhibition of prints, portraits, artifacts and cookbooks highlighting Pennsylvania cooking. The recipes in the following menu were developed by William Woys Weaver, curator of the exhibit. Supper opens with potted ham, a spicy pate named for the pot in which it is packed...

Today we begin a popular feature wherein we will address the major ethical questions of the day, starting with: Is it okay to eat your dog? ANSWER: No. Not here in America. Oh, sure, most of us have heard the story about an American who COOKED her dog in a microwave oven, but this was not for the purpose of eating it. What happened (according to the story) was this American had one of those little rodent-sized dogs whose main purpose in the Great Chain of Life is to pee on...